J’Dal is a fantasy cave-crawl with a few non-standard features, written in Glulx. Per tradition, I will have some non-spoilery content after the jump; then if there’s anything spoilery I wish to discuss, it will be separated from the rest of the review with spoiler space. The fact that I am covering J’Dal at all means that it does feature listed beta-testers.
Month: October 2012
IF Comp 2012: Guilded Youth (Jim Munroe)
Guilded Youth is an Inform 7 game with a Vorple front end, concerning a teenager interacting with his MUD guild-mates both online and off. Per tradition, I will have some non-spoilery content after the jump; then if there’s anything spoilery I wish to discuss, it will be separated from the rest of the review with spoiler space. The fact that I am covering Guilded Youth at all means that it does feature listed beta-testers.
IF Comp 2012: Transit (Shaye)
Transit is a CYOA-styled work, created in Twine, about being stranded at a foreign airport. Per tradition, I will have some non-spoilery content after the jump; then if there’s anything spoilery I wish to discuss, it will be separated from the rest of the review with spoiler space. The fact that I am covering Transit at all means that it does feature listed beta-testers.
IF Comp 2012: Living Will (Mark Marino)
Living Will concerns a will that changes dynamically in response to the reader, with the possibility that taking different paths through the will may result in different legacies and messages from the deceased.
Per tradition with my IF Comp reviews, I will have some non-spoilery content after the jump; then if there’s anything spoilery I wish to discuss, it will be separated from the rest of the review with spoiler space.
Disclaimer: I saw this game originally in an unreleased version prior to the comp, at which time I gave some feedback on it. I didn’t bang on it long or hard enough to really claim the title of beta-tester, but nonetheless my comments should be read in light of this favorable predisposition.
Choice of Games: Eerie Estate Agent (Gavin Inglis)
Eerie Estate Agent is a newish piece from Choice of Games, created by writer Gavin Inglis. The premise is that you’re an estate agent (or realtor, in American terms) and you’re responsible for getting 57 Crowther Terrace rented out. Your unpleasant boss is just looking for an excuse to fire you and the other employees around the office don’t exactly have your back, so the stakes are high. The problem is that no one seems to want to stick around the place for long, possibly because of all the spooky stuff that happens there.
Inglis identifies as a writer more than a game designer, and that shows, in ways both good and bad. I’ve often thought that the actual prose quality was a bit of a weak spot in many Choice of Games offerings: the text in Choice of the Dragon, for instance, is typically utilitarian, and though some of the later works become more ambitious, the results are not universally happy.
Eerie Estate Agent has a much more distinctive and engaging voice than these: breezy but well-controlled, lightly humorous, sometimes casting the protagonist as a not entirely nice person. There’s a good sense of the Edinburgh setting (not perhaps surprising, as Inglis seems to know the place well). In the eerie happenings, he tends to hit a good middle ground between the creepy and the funny, going for paranormal indications that are amusing but that would probably be distinctly unnerving if they happened a lot in real life. (Rooms that periodically fill up with the scent of tea? Indications that seem to resemble the scurrying of a dozen ghostly rodents?)
A down side is that Eerie Estate Agent doesn’t deliver very strongly on Choice of Games’ traditional strength: lots and lots of agency.
Continue reading “Choice of Games: Eerie Estate Agent (Gavin Inglis)”
IF Comp 2012 is now open
It is That Time of Year again: IF Comp games for 2012 are now available: 28 games this year, which any non-author may judge, assuming they submit their votes before November 15. Many of these can be played online directly through the IF Comp site.
Assorted reviews are already beginning to appear on various IF blogs as well. Links to many review sites may be found here, for the interested. I have also posted my own overview.
Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling 